America's 'Special Relationships'

This unique volume offers an original collection of essays on the theme of America’s ‘special relationships’. It interrogates in an original and provocative manner the distinctive character of America’s interactions with an array of allies and clients, both international and domestic. The essays vary in their focus; some are primarily historical, some are more contemporary. All consider the quality of ‘specialness’ in the context of America’s relationship with particular countries, including the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Holland, Russia, Iran and Israel. The collection also concerns the relationship between the American state and key ‘special’ foreign policy interests, notably ethnic lobbies and religious groups. Bringing together a wide range of experts, this timely collection provides a valuable addition to the debates surrounding US foreign policy, and will be of great interest to students and scholars of American politics, American history and international relations.

"John Dumbrell and Axel Shafer have brought together a group of scholars who are on the proverbial ‘cutting edge’ of recent scholarship on U. S. foreign policy, alliances, and ‘special’ relationships. The result is a collection of essays that makes for required reading for those who want to understand the recent past and likely future of America’s role in world politics."David M. Barrett, Professor of Political Science, Villanova University‘We have often been told the world is being turned upside down. Now this old cliché may well be coming true. China's rapid rise, the world economic crisis, Europe's apparent inability to find a clear voice of its own, and America's many troubles - made all the more poignant by the election of the most capable American President in years - makes this fine study on America's many special relationships particularly timely. A new world is in the making where traditional ties might be becoming increasingly less important to policy-makers in Washington and it is about time that we in Europe got used to the fact that we are all perhaps special no longer.’Professor Michael Cox, Co-Director IDEAS and Department of International Relations, London School of Economics.

John Dumbrell is Professor of Government at Durham University. He specializes in the study of US foreign policy. He is the author of President Lyndon Johnson and Soviet Communism (2004), A Special Relationship: Anglo-American Relations from the Cold War to Iraq (2006), and Clinton’s Foreign Policy: Between the Bushes (2009).Axel R. Schäfer is Senior Lecturer in US History and Director of the David Bruce Centre for American Studies at Keele University. His main research interests are in US intellectual and political history. He is the author of American Progressives and German Social Reform, 1875-1920 (2000) and The Cold War State, Religion, and the Resurgence of Evangelicalism, 1942-1990 (forthcoming).